No Maps, No Street Names, No Traffic Signals, No Accidents

This time last year I was in China collecting data for a research project.  While the trip itself was rewarding because the research expedition was successful, I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the experience.  I liked visiting the Great Wall and buying beautiful silk Chinese clothes.  But towards the end of the trip I was tired of the excessive pollution and crowded spaces.  One of the things I learned was that despite traffic laws, the average speed of cars in Beijing is 9 miles per hour.  Yes, NINE.  The reason being that the streets are so congested the cars can’t go any faster even if they wanted to.

In a few of the big cities in Africa you do see excessive vehicular traffic.  And there are no emissions laws anywhere on the continent from what I can tell, so most of the public transportation (combis, matutus, boda-bodas, etc.) are constantly discharging cough-inducing bellows of black smoke.  There aren’t many people here with personal vehicles, except of course for the diplomats, NGOs and businessmen making their millions.

In general, the roads are in poor condition regardless of where you are, and the organization of those roads is even more appalling.  I mentioned in a previous post that maps simply don’t exist here.  Most people can’t read maps anyway due to the inability to understand directions.  When I was taking driving lessons my instructor never once told me to turn left or right.  He would just point, “Go that way.”  This is typical because very few people know their right from their left.  To top it all off, most streets are not given names.  They may have had names at one point, but no one knows the name and there certainly aren’t any street signs anywhere.  Years ago several African countries mounted street signs in an effort to instill upon their citizens a sense of location and place names.  This was a failed experiment as all the street signs were promptly stolen and melted down for scrap metal.  None of those signs have been replaced as it is a losing battle and too costly.  On top of all these challenges, perhaps one of the most glaring is the lack of working robots (traffic lights).  Currently in Botswana we do not have a SINGLE working robot due to power outages.

A few weeks ago I was in Ethiopia for a layover.  I was in Addis Ababa, the capital, which is a huge city by African standards.  I found it interesting that there were practically no traffic signals anywhere in the city.  Instead, most of the traffic was governed by roundabouts and general courtesy.  Here is one of the main intersections where traffic is converging from six different streets.  I find it amazing that somehow they manage to actually make it work:

The Dead Muzungu Market

Have you ever wondered when you donate to an organization where that stuff actually goes?  Let me tell you.

Actually, before I get into my story, let’s make sure we are all on the same page.  According to Phelan’s Dictionary:

Muzungu [moo-zune-goo]: (noun) Slang: a white person, a term used primarily in east and central African countries to refer to someone with light skin.

Ok, now that we have that key word defined, back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

When you donate clothes or food or school supplies to an organization which claims to be helping orphans in Africa or homeless victims of a typhoon or some other depressed group in a land far, far away, what do you think actually happens to your donations?  Do you think those exact people actually get it and use it?  Survey says: NO.

Here’s what really happens:  Salvation Armies and Goodwills and other non-profit organizations all over the world collect donations and then send them to communities of their choosing.  Very often those things get sent to Africa.  And while sometimes they are donations, very often someone, somewhere is making a profit.

In most cases if the clothes actually make it to their destination and are given free of charge to community members, those people turn around and sell them.  All over Africa I see little kids wearing t-shirts that say “Sexy Grandma” or mechanics wearing “Race for the Cure” bandannas.  The University of North Carolina must have a huge student group which collects clothing donations and sends them to Africa, because I think that is the most prevalent collegiate attire I see in every country on the continent.  And when I was in Congo last week I finally saw…… a guy on a motor bike wearing a Texas Tech sweatshirt!  I practically caused a traffic accident trying to talk to the TTU sweatshirt guy, but was unable to take a picture because there were half a dozen police officers standing nearby witnessing our conversation.  When I asked Mr. TTU Sweatshirt where he obtained his prized possession he told me he purchased it at the Dead Muzungu Market.

The Dead Muzungu Market is where your donations begin their second life.  The reason it is called the Dead Muzungu Market is because everyone shopping there believes the clothes previously belonged to dead muzungus.  Why else would someone get rid of perfectly good clothes?  Obviously, someone died which is why their clothes ended up all the way in Africa.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, anything you own in Africa (car, refrigerator, phone, etc.) is used until it literately dies and cannot be used any longer.  So the concept of disposing of clothes which can still be worn does not make logical sense to anyone here.  Hence, if the clothes are still intact and can be worn there must be another reason someone got rid of them.  If the clothes didn’t fall apart and die, then their owner must have, thus creating the belief that all these clothes shipped from abroad belonged to now dead muzungus.

Keep this in mind and smile next time you donate your former sorority rush night t-shirt to your church group.  Chances are sometime in the future a taxi driver in Sierra Leone will be wearing it proudly and announcing to friends that he purchased it at the Dead Muzungu Market.

My 100th Blog Post from Africa: Happy Thanksgiving!

For those of you out there diligently reading my blog posts every weekday, thank you for being a loyal follower.  Today is Thanksgiving in America and this is the 100^th blog post since I moved to Africa four months ago.  In honor of this occasion, and more importantly, because I took some really cool videos while I was in Uganda, I put together a brief compilation of some of my experiences there.

Not everything I did in Uganda is in the video as I couldn’t record certain things, but I would like to acknowledge the following organizations which made my trip very memorable:

Encounter Africa Safaris which organized my trip, accommodation and travel partner to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to see the gorillas. http://www.gorilla-tracking-uganda.com/about-uganda-gorilla-safari-company.html

Uganda Wildlife Authority which provided the guide, porters and escorts during our gorilla trek. http://www.ugandawildlife.org

The Department of Tourism at Makerere University where I guest lectured for two days.

Uganda Bicycle which gave me a great workout mountain biking through the muddy streets of Kampala. http://www.ugandabicycle.com

Ricky’s Boda Boda Tours which gave me an excellent tour of Kampala on the back of a very safe boda boda (motorbike). http://www.kombitours.com/kampalabodatours

Ndere Cultural Center where I had dinner on my last night in Kampala and watched an impressive dance troupe representing different ethnic groups from all around Uganda. http://ndere.com

Holland Park in Jinja, the beautiful B&B where I stayed in Jinja, the source of the Nile. http://www.hollandparkuganda.com

***Disclaimer: Please be aware I was in no way compensated by these organizations for mentioning them on my blog.  Also, I found all of them through my own devices and did not receive any discounts or free services.  There is absolutely no ulterior motive in my naming these companies.  They all just made my trip a great experience, and in the event anyone reading this decides to visit Uganda I highly encourage you to consider using any of these businesses.  If I am fortunate to visit Uganda again in the future I expect I will be contacting most, if not all, of these companies again.

And now… for my video.  Enjoy:

Kampala by Boda Boda

Back in Texas there is an instructor in my department, John, who is by far my favorite person on faculty.  I don’t spend very much time with him because we have different jobs which keep both of us very busy, but I always enjoy and look forward to our occasional conversations.  He is probably the most proper person I’ve ever met, and after six years I don’t believe he has ever called me by my first name; he always addresses me as Dr. Phelan.  Given his dedication to good manners and etiquette, I was surprised to find out he and his wife are avid bikers, as in motorcycles.  This revelation proved to me that Hollywood’s portrayal of certain social groups really does promote inaccurate stereotypes.

Over the last couple of years John has delicately, but consistently, encouraged me to purchase a bike.  I had never been on a motorcycle before, so he offered to take me out for a ride along with his wife one afternoon.  Though I was initially nervous and holding on for dear life, after a short time I became comfortable and really enjoyed the experience.

Last weekend while I was in Kampala I wanted play tourist.  The problem with many African cities (Gaborone would be an exception to the rule) is that they are highly populated, there aren’t enough roads to accommodate the vehicles and there are few, if any, working traffic lights or rules of the road.  This means that it could easily take two hours to travel 5 miles due to congestion.  I didn’t want to waste my one and only free day in Kampala stuck in traffic, particularly since it was a Saturday and the sights I was interested in seeing where on opposing ends of the city.

I had been observing the boda bodas, which are the motorcycle taxis, with hesitation all week.  I had read that five people die each day in boda boda accidents in Kampala, and seeing them weaving in and out of traffic made me a bit nervous.  I didn’t want to be the muzungu (white person) killed in a boda boda accident.

Fortunately I was able to marry my desire to play tourist and take a boda boda ride.  Enter Ricky’s Boda Boda Tours.  Ricky probably has the most brilliant business plan I’ve seen yet in Africa.  All the foreigners who come visit want to do tours, but don’t want to get stuck in traffic.  They also want to try out the boda bodas, but because of all the bad press, they tend to shy away from them.  Ricky has a team of boda boda drivers who double as tour guides.  They drive slightly larger and safer motorcycles, provide their customers with helmets (and the drivers wear helmets too which you never see with normal boda bodas), they can safely zip through traffic quickly, and they know everything there is to know about the city.  I was lucky enough to ride with Ricky himself on a private tour and loved it!

This picture doesn’t really portray the amount of traffic in Kampala, but at least here you can see what the boda bodas look like, and there are thousands of them all over the city:

On my tour I was taken to the Palace of the King of the Buganda, the Baha’i temple, one of the markets, and the National Mosque (on Gaddafi Road) which was donated by… you guessed it, Gaddafi.  The Gaddafi National Mosque was huge as you can see here:

And here I am wearing the required attire.  Everyone who knows me is aware I am perpetually freezing; I did NOT have that problem with this outfit.  I was sweating like crazy:

The reason Ricky took me to the mosque was because it has the best view of Kampala.  There are seven hills surrounding Kampala and you could see all of them and the various neighborhoods from the mosque.  Here is one shot of Kampala and the traffic below:

In the 1960s Queen Elizabeth gave the King 10 luxury cars, including a Bentley and a Rolls Royce.  The cars are all rusted out, but they are still on the front lawn of the palace as a reminder of the good old days.  However, the palace grounds also play host to some less than favorable memories.  Idi Amin had his torture chambers underground and we saw those as well.  Here is the Palace of the King of Buganda (Buganda is a large territory within the country; about half the landmass of Uganda belongs to the Buganda kingdom.):

I really enjoyed my boda boda tour.  Ricky really knew his stuff, which I appreciated, so I definitely learned a lot.  And of course, I got to ride a boda boda without being scared to death.  I’m not sure whether I will be ready to purchase my own ride when I return to Texas, but it’s not totally out of the question.